Line #33 YMMV/Tool


1	* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: Alex Grey's iconic psychedelic album covers for ''Lateralus'' and ''10,000 Days'', as well as his art featured in the CD release of ''Fear Inoculum''.
2	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Pretty much their entire catalogue, although ''[=Æ=]nima'' and ''Lateralus'' are generally considered their best work. [[AwesomeMusic/{{Tool}} You can see the band's page for the trope for further elaboration by album.]]
3	* BrokenBase: ''10,000 Days'' has a bit of a polarizing opinion among the fanbase, as is ''Fear Inoculum'' due to the heavy wait for the album.
4	* EpicRiff: ...and not just on the guitar. The bass intros to "Sober" and "Schism" are probably the best-known. It's pretty fair to say most Tool songs are built around an epic bass riff, with the guitar and drums adding a whole lot of texture and atmosphere.
5	* EpilepticTrees:
6	** Tool has so many of these that [[http://toolnavy.com/index.php there is a website]] dedicated to discussing them.
7	** During the build-up to the announcement of ''Fear Inoculum'', fans thought the album would have an Egyptian theme, mainly thanks to [[http://exclaim.ca/images/tool_new_logo_gold_2019.png the band logo]].
8	* FandomRivalry: With, of all people, ''Music/TaylorSwift fans''! ''Fear Inoculum'' was projected by many to overtake Taylor's ''Lover'' album for the number one spot on the Billboard 200, projecting '''massive''' outrage from a number of her fans. Sure enough, [[CrazyEnoughToWork it actually happened]], further fueling the rivalry between both camps.
9	* FanNickname: Danny Carey is called "The Octopus" by some fans because of his awe-inspiring ability to play a different rhythm with each limb simultaneously.
10	* GeniusBonus: Do you happen to be a kabbalah scholar, conspiracy theories nut, musician, possess degrees in psychology and mathematics, and have a passing familiarity with drug culture? All at the same time? At this point you may, unaided, begin to understand just how many, ''many'' obscure references and in-jokes Tool loads their music and lyrics with. Being genuinely insane may or may not also help.
11	* GrowingTheBeard: ''Undertow'' and ''[=Æ=]nima'' were both extremely popular and successful albums, but they didn't truly make the band stand apart from and above other bands (see VindicatedByHistory). ''Lateralus'' was their real world-smasher, the magnum opus that proved how truly unique a band Tool was and a much more mature, fully-realised work than its angrier predecessors, with the masterpiece title track being regularly hailed as not only their greatest song ever, but ''the'' greatest song in the entire prog-metal genre, if not the entirety of metal. Famous metal publication Kerrang! [[https://www.kerrang.com/features/the-outward-spiral-how-lateralus-galvanised-tools-cutting-edge/ wrote an article]] about how radically the album transformed and elevated the band.
12	* HarsherInHindsight: "Faaip de Oiad," with its sample of a paranoid-sounding radio caller warning about "disasters that are coming," was released 5 months before the 9/11 attacks.
13	* ItsPopularNowItSucks: When Tool made their first steps toward popularity, some fans reacted with typical outrage, causing an obviously angry Maynard to fire back with the song "Hooker with a Penis," in which he mocks a typical fan for having ever "bought in" to his music in the first place.
14	* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: Most of the criticism leveled at ''10,000 Days'' is that it's basically a slightly heavier ''Lateralus'', offering very little that's different. For instance, the main riff to "Vicarious" is basically a [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong rewrite]] of a riff that appears near the end of "Schism."
15	* MemeticMutation:
16	** [[DevelopmentHell "So when is Tool's new album coming out?"]]
17	*** Related to this, claiming the title of ''10,000 Days'' as being the amount of time it will take for the new album to come out.
18	*** The above meme was considered moot when ''[[https://twitter.com/Tool/status/1125992825756233729 the band finally gave out a release date]]'' for their new album. [[CueTheFlyingPigs And they weren't joking this time.]]
19	** "Tool hates their fans"
20	** The sequence of the protagonist [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascending to a higher plane of existence]] near the end of the "Parabola" music video is occasionally used as part of the [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/expanding-brain "Expanding Brain"]] meme.
21	** People have begun to make memes and jokes about the new logo for ''Fear Inoculum''.
22	** TOOL HEIST!, used to describe when a user on the band's subreddit ''actually went out of his way to leak the album''.
23	** "What genre is tool?" [[note]] A question that’s often asked regarding what genre tool falls under became a meme onto itself after it got asked too many times over the years. [[/note]]
24	*** "Yes." [[note]] The most common [[NonAnswer answer]] to the question. [[/note]]
25	** [[TheAce Danny Carey likes to play 4 different timings at once. He can do 5.]] [[BiggusDickus But not with his pants on.]]
26	* MemeticTroll: Maynard Keenan has definitely built up this reputation over the years. Not just for the delays for a new album, but also his ability to get a rise out of other artists.
27	* MisattributedSong: For some reason (probably because it sounds quite a lot like "Lateralus"), more than a few people think the theme song for ''VideoGame/{{Doom 3}}'' is by the band. It's a very understandable mistake, but it's actually by Tweaker.
28	* NightmareRetardant: Finding out what "Die Eier von Satan" is actually about.
29	* ParanoiaFuel: "Faaip de Oiad".
30	* SelfParody: "Lost Keys (Blame Hoffmann)"/"Rosetta Stoned" feels like this in relation to "Third Eye". In the latter song from ''[=Æ=]nima'' (1996), the protagonist tries to forcibly induce a spiritual awakening, implied to be done through psychedelic drugs. In the former track(s) from ''10,000 Days'' (2006), the protagonist is an eccentric man dropped off at a hospital who recounts his experience of making contact with aliens after taking DMT. Doubles as CreatorBacklash possibly due to a portion of the fanbase interpreting "Third Eye" as DrugsAreGood and equated LSD use to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascending to a Higher Plane of Existence]], when it can just as easily become {{Cloudcuckoolander}}.
31	* ShockingMoments: In 2019, the band announced that not only would they be releasing a new album on August 30 after an eight-year hiatus, but that all of their albums would be dropping on streaming services for the first time on August 2.
32	* SignatureSong: "Sober" was the band's biggest hit in the 90s and received lots of radio play. "Schism" may have overtaken it as their most popular song in the 2000s. Most fans cite "Lateralus" as their best song, though. To a lesser extent, "[=Æ=]nema" and "Prison Sex".
33	* SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel: ''Yes'', this band actually has moments where they provide some things that can provide such calmness, such as "Disposition" from ''Lateralus'', "Intermission" off of ''[=Æ=]nima'', and all of ''Fear Inoculum'', most notably "Invincible" and "Culling Voices". And that's to say nothing of "Descending", which begins with literally [[SugarWiki/MostWonderfulsound the sound of waves]].
34	* TearJerker:
35	** "Wings for Marie/10,000 Days," seeing that it's an emotional tribute to Maynard's mother from Maynard himself. Can also count as a SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoment as the lyrics are about how Maynard's mother should be allowed in Heaven if she's kept her faith for twenty-seven years of suffering. [[RageAgainstTheHeavens GIVE ME MY, GIVE ME MY,]] '''''[[RageAgainstTheHeavens GIVE ME MY WINGS!!!!]]'''''
36	** "Sober", which was written about a friend who had descended into alcoholism and co-dependency.
37	** "Disgustipated" can be considered this too if you consider the possibility that it's about how no lifeform on this planet is safe, animal, human or plant.
38	** "Prison Sex", which is about the cycle of childhood sexual abuse and the narrator continuing the cycle after abuse. The video is straight NightmareFuel, though.
39	** "The Patient," enforcing the trope of GoodFeelsGood despite how bad things get.
40	** Most of ''Fear Inoculum'' seems to be this, with "Invincible", "Descending" and "7empest" implying a sort of despair in its calming and LighterAndSofter tone.
41	** “Right in Two”, a mournful song about a pair of angels watching {{humans\|AreBastards}} go to war for stupid reasons, and wondering why God ever gave them free will.
42	--->''Silly monkeys, give them thumbs, they make a club and beat their brother down...''
43	* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: Music/KurtCobain mentioned the music video for "Sober" as being very similar to [[DerangedAnimation the style]] of the Brothers Quay and was unimpressed, saying that the Quays could sue Tool for copyright infringement.
44	* ToughActToFollow: Among their music videos, it's actually the opposite of the songs; while they've done a lot of great videos over the years, the ones everyone remembers best are the two [[NightmareFuel/{{tool}} stop-motion nightmares]] of "Sober" and "Prison Sex" from their first studio album, ''Undertow.''
45	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: "Hooker With a Penis" was obviously written before the age of online file sharing. There's no guarantee that any fan of a musical artist has ever paid a dime to listen to their music.
46	* VindicatedByHistory: A minor example, but for the longest time Tool got lumped in with a bunch of bands they had nothing in common with. When they released ''Undertow'', critics tried to compare them to {{Grunge}} or IndustrialMetal. When they released ''[=Æ=]nima'', the critics shoehorned them within NuMetal bands like {{Music/Korn}} or Music/LimpBizkit (which severely irritated Maynard, as he loathed both bands). ''Lateralus'' seemed to finally set everyone straight, making it absolutely clear Tool was their own thing.

Context YMMV / Tool